Having helped over 400,000+ people make a website with WordPress, we have decided to create the most comprehensive step by step guide on how to a create a WordPress website without learning how to code.
This guide is useful for users of all ages and skill levels. However, if you need help, then you can contact our expert team to help you setup your website for free.
→ Click Here to Get Your Free WordPress Website Setup! ←
If you want to do it by yourself, then please continue to follow our beginner friendly guide on how to make a website.
Here is an overview from start to finish of all the steps we’ll walk you through in this guide.
- How to find and register a domain name for free
- How to choosing the best web hosting
- How to install WordPress
- Installing a template and customizing your site’s design
- Creating pages in WordPress
- Customizing WordPress with addons and extensions
- Resources to learn WordPress and get support
- Taking it further, building websites with more features (eCommerce stores, membership sites, sell online courses, and more).
Before we start creating a website, let’s cover some of the most commonly asked questions that we get.
First, no you DO NOT need to be a web developer to create a custom website. Our guide is written for non-techy users, and we will show you a no-code solution to create a website.
With that said, let’s look at all the things you need to build a website.
What do I need to build a website?
You’ll need the following three things to start your WordPress site.
- A domain name – this is the name of your website such as google.com
- WordPress hosting – this is where your website files are stored.
- 45 minutes of your undivided attention.
How much does a WordPress website cost?
The answer to this question really depends on what kind of website you are trying to build. We have written a comprehensive 2,000 word guide explaining how much does it really cost to build a website.
A typical personal website can cost as low as $100. The cost of a business website can range from anywhere between $100 per year to as high as $30,000 per year.
We recommend all our users to start small and then add more features to your website as your business grows. This way you will save money and minimize potential losses while avoiding overspending.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to build a website for less than $100.
We will also show you how to take it further by adding more features to it in the future.
Which is the best website builder platform?
There are many website builders available that will help you setup a website. We recommend using self-hosted WordPress as your website platform.
WordPress is the most popular website platform in the world. It powers nearly 43% of all websites on the internet.
WordPress is free, open source, and comes with thousands of pre-built website designs and extensions. It is extremely flexible and works with almost every third-party tool and service available to website owners.
We use WordPress to build all our websites including this one, WPBeginner.
How to make the most of this website design tutorial?
This is a step by step tutorial on how to make a website. We have divided it into different steps, and we’ll walk you through everything from start to finish. Just follow along the instructions, and you’ll have a professional looking website in the end.
We will also point you in the right direction on how to take your website to the next level based on your needs.
Have fun creating your WordPress website.
Remember, if you need help, you can contact us and we will setup your website for free.
Let’s get started.
How to Create a Website (Video Tutorial)
If you prefer written instructions, then please continue reading.
Step 1. Website Setup
One of the most common mistakes that beginners make is choosing the wrong website platform. Thankfully, you are here so you will not be making that mistake.
For most users, a self-hosted WordPress.org site is the perfect solution. It comes with thousands of designs and addons which allow you to create any kind of website you can think of. For more on this topic, please see our guide on why you should use WordPress.
WordPress is free for anyone to download and use to build any kind of website without any restrictions.
If WordPress is free, then where is the cost coming from?
WordPress is free because you’ll have to arrange your own custom domain name and web hosting provider, which costs money. For more on this topic, see our article why is WordPress free?.
A domain name is your website’s address on the internet. This is what your users will type in their browsers to reach your site (For example, wpbeginner.com or google.com).
Next, you’ll need website hosting. All websites on the internet needs a web host to store their website files. This will be your website’s home on the internet.
A domain name typically costs $14.99/year and hosting costs start from $7.99/month.
This is A LOT for most people who are just starting out.
Thankfully, Bluehost, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off on web hosting.
→ Click here to Claim this Exclusive Bluehost offer ←
Bluehost is one of the largest hosting companies in the world. They are also an official WordPress recommended hosting partner.
They have been working with WordPress since 2005, and are committed to give back to the community. That’s why they have promised us that if you cannot set up your website by following this tutorial, then our expert team will complete the process for you without any cost. They will compensate us, so you don’t have to. Feel free to contact us for free website setup help.
Note: At WPBeginner, we believe in transparency. If you purchase hosting using our referral link, then we will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. In fact, you will get discount on hosting + free SSL + a free domain name. We would get this commission for recommending any WordPress hosting company, but we only recommend products that we personally use and believe will add value to our readers.
Let’s go ahead and purchase domain name and hosting.
First, you’ll need to go to the Bluehost website in a new browser window and click on the green ‘Get Started Now’ button.
This will bring you to a pricing page where you will need to choose a hosting plan for your website. Basic and plus plans are the most popular choices among our users.
You’ll need to click on select to choose the plan that you like and continue to the next step.
On the next screen, you’ll be asked to select a new domain name.
Ideally you should stick to a .com domain name. Make sure that it is related to your business, easy to pronounce and spell, and easy to remember.
Need help choosing a domain name for your website? See these tips and tools on how to choose the best domain name.
After choosing your domain name, click on the next button to continue.
Now you’ll be asked to provide your account information such as name, address, email, etc.
On this screen, you will also see optional extras that you can purchase. We generally don’t recommend purchasing these extras. You can always add them later on, if you decide that you need them.
Next, you will add your payment information to finish the purchase.
After completing your purchase, you’ll receive an email with details on how to login to your web hosting control panel (cPanel).
This is your hosting account dashboard where you manage everything like getting support, setting up emails, etc. Most importantly, this is where you’ll install WordPress.
Step 2. Install WordPress
When you signup with Bluehost using our link, they will automatically install WordPress for you. They launched this one-click WordPress installer to make it easier for non-techy users to create their website.
What this means is you simply need to login to your Bluehost account, and then click the Login to WordPress button to get started. This setup process has really reduced the learning curve needed to make a website.
You can also login to WordPress dashboard by simply going to yoursite.com/wp-admin/ directly from your browser.
You can use your Bluehost account to create multiple websites. Simply go to the My Sites section and use their one-click WordPress installer to make additional websites.
If you are using a different WordPress website hosting service like SiteGround, Hostinger, HostGator, WP Engine, etc, then you can see our comprehensive guide on how to install WordPress for step by step instructions for those providers.
Once WordPress is setup, you’re ready to customize your website design by selecting a new template, and creating new pages.
Wasn’t that easy?
Now, let’s move on to the next step and choose a design for your website.
Step 3. Select Your Theme
The visual appearance of your WordPress site is controlled by a WordPress theme.
WordPress themes are professionally designed templates that you can install on your website to change its appearance.
By default, each WordPress site comes with a basic theme. If you visit your website, then it will look something like this:
This is not very appealing for most users.
But don’t worry, there are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes that you can install on your site.
You can change your theme from the WordPress admin dashboard. Visit Appearance » Themes page and then click on the ‘Add New’ button.
On the next screen, you will able to search from 9,600 free WordPress themes that are available in the official WordPress.org themes directory. You can sort them by popular, latest, featured, as well as other feature filters (i.e industry, layout, etc).
Need help choosing a theme? Check out our list of these awesome free WordPress business themes, and our pick of the best premium themes for WordPress.
For the sake of this guide, we’ll be using Bento. It is a popular multi-purpose free WordPress theme with flexible design options for all kind of websites.
Other good WordPress themes that we recommend are Astra or Divi.
If you’re looking to create a completely custom WordPress theme, then we recommend using the SeedProd builder for WordPress.
We have created a detailed tutorial on how to create a custom WordPress theme without writing any code.
How to Install a Theme in WordPress
If you know the name of the free theme you want to install, then you can look for it by entering its name in the search field.
WordPress will show you the theme in search results. You will need to take your mouse over to the theme and then click on the Install button.
Once you have installed your theme, you can customize it by clicking on the Customize link under the Appearance menu.
This will launch the theme customizer where you will be able to change your theme settings with live preview of your website.
If you’re using one of the newer full site editing themes, then you will see a different version of the site customizer.
The default WordPress customizer and full site editing doesn’t offer a true drag & drop customization experience.
This is why many website professionals and small business owners choose to use a WordPress page builder plugin like SeedProd to customize any theme to update fonts, change styles, colors, and other items to match your website needs.
You can even create a fully custom WordPress theme without any code.
Remember, you don’t need to finalize all theme settings right away. You will be able to customize it much better once you have some content on your website.
Let’s see how to add content to your WordPress site.
Step 4. Add Content to Your Website
WordPress comes with two default content types called posts and pages. Posts are part of the blogging functionality and appear in reverse-chronological order (newer items displayed first).
On the other hand, pages are meant to be static “one-off” type content such as your about page, contact page, privacy policy, custom landing page, etc.
By default, WordPress shows your blog posts on the front page of your website. You can change that, and make WordPress show any static page as the homepage of your website (we’ll show you how to do that later in this guide).
You can create a separate page for your blog or news section to show your recent posts. Alternatively, you can create a website without any blog section at all.
Having said that, let’s add some content to your website.
You’ll start by adding a few pages to your WordPress site. Don’t worry if you don’t have enough content for these pages at the moment. You can always edit and update them.
Head over to Pages » Add New page in WordPress admin area. This will bring you to the page editor screen, which will look similar to this, depending on your theme:
First you need to provide a title for your page, let’s call this page ‘Home’.
After that you can add content in the text editor below. You can add text, links, images, embed videos, audio, etc.
After adding content to your page, you can click on the publish button to make it live on your website.
You can repeat the process by adding more pages for different sections of your website. For example, an about page, contact us, and a blog page to display blog posts.
Now let’s add a few blog posts as well.
Head over to Posts » Add New in your WordPress admin area, where you will see a screen much like you saw earlier when adding pages.
You can add a post title and then add content in the visual post editor. You’ll also notice some extra options in the sidebar like post formats, categories and tags.
You can click on the save button to store your post as a draft or click on the publish button to make it visible on your site.
For more detailed instructions on how to utilize all these options on post and page edit screens, please see our guide on how to add a new post in WordPress.
Step 5. Customizing and Tweaking Your Website
Now that you have created some content for your own website, you will be able to customize and put it all in a nice presentable shape for your users.
Let’s start by setting up a static front page (also known as homepage).
Setting up a Static Front Page
You need to visit the Settings » Reading page in your WordPress admin dashboard. Under the ‘Front page displays’ option click on the static front page and then select ‘Pages’ you created earlier for your home and blog pages.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page to store your changes.
WordPress will now use the page titled ‘Home’ as your site’s front page and ‘Blog’ page to display your blog posts.
Change Site Title and Tagline
During the installation you get to choose your site’s title. WordPress automatically adds a tag line to your site title that says ‘Just another WordPress site’.
You can change both your site’s title and tagline at any time by visiting Settings » General page.
Your site title will be the name of your website like WPBeginner. The tag line is usually a single line that describes your website.
You can also leave the tag line field blank if you want because WordPress SEO plugins like AIOSEO, Yoast SEO, and others will override it for better search engine optimization (more on this later).
Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.
Set up Comments Settings
WordPress comes with a built-in comment system allowing your users to leave comments on your posts. This is great for WordPress user engagement, but it is targeted by spammers as well.
To deal with this, you’ll need to enable comment moderation on your website.
Visit Settings » Discussions page and scroll down to ‘Before a comment appears’ section. Check the box next to ‘Comment must be manually approved’ option.
Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.
Create Navigation Menus
Navigation menus allow your users to browse different pages or sections on your website. WordPress comes with a powerful navigation menu system, and your WordPress theme utilizes this system to display menus.
Let’s add a navigation menu to your website.
First, you need to visit Appearance » Menus page. Enter a name for your navigation menu and click on the create menu button.
WordPress will now create your navigation menu. But it will be empty at the moment.
Next, you need to select the pages you want to display in your menu and then click on add to menu button.
You will notice your selected pages filling the empty area of your navigation menu. You can move these menu items up and down to rearrange their position in the menu.
Now you need to select a display location. These locations are defined by your WordPress theme. Usually, most WordPress themes have a primary menu that appears in your website header at the top.
Finally, click on the save menu button to store your navigation menu.
You can now visit your website to see the menu in action.
For more detailed instructions see our beginner’s guide on how to add navigation menu in WordPress.
Step 6. Installing Plugins in WordPress
WordPress Plugins are like apps for your WordPress site. They allow you to add features and customizations to your WordPress site. Think contact form, photo galleries, etc.
You can install plugins from your WordPress dashboard by clicking on the Plugins page.
There are currently more than 59,000 free plugins available for WordPress. There are also paid plugins sold by third-party websites and developers.
With this many plugins, how do you find which plugins to install? We got you covered there as well, see our guide on how to choose the best WordPress plugin.
Here is our list of essential plugins that you should install on your site right away. All of them are free.
Features
- WPForms Lite – Allows you to add a contact form on your WordPress site. All professional websites display their contact information on the same page as their contact form.
- MonsterInsights – Connect your website with Google Analytics and see how visitors find and use your website, so you can keep them coming back.
- SeedProd – Drag and drop page builder for creating completely custom designs & layouts without any technical know how.
Website Optimization
- All in One SEO – Improve your WordPress SEO and get more traffic from Google
- WP Super Cache – Free WordPress caching plugin that helps improve your website speed
- PushEngage – Helps increase website traffic by letting you connect with visitors after they leave your website. Push notifications are top 5 traffic source for WPBeginner.
Security
- Updraft Plus – Create automatic scheduled backups of your website
- Sucuri – Website security audit and malware scanner
Extras
- WooCommerce – create an eCommerce website with WordPress. Makes it easy to set up an online store and sell physical products.
- MemberPress – makes it easy to create and sell online courses and digital memberships.
- Smash Balloon – makes it easy to add social media widgets for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
- OptinMonster – helps you get more email subscribers and optimize website conversion rate with dynamic popups, modals, and other smart personalization features.
- HubSpot – add free live chat for providing customer support, email marketing for newsletters, and CRM to your WordPress website. Works seamlessly with OptinMonster.
- Uncanny Automator – helps you set up automated workflows to streamline your small business workflows and save time.
- WP Mail SMTP – fixes WordPress email deliverability issues with PHP Mail configurations on managed WordPress hosting providers.
- Envira Gallery Lite – Add beautiful image galleries to your WordPress site
Need help installing plugins? See our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
For more plugin recommendations check out our list of 24 must have WordPress plugins for business websites.
Step 7. Mastering WordPress
WordPress is easy to use, but it is also an extremely powerful content management system. From time to time, you may find yourself looking for some quick WordPress help.
The good news is that there are plenty of free WordPress help available. See our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it.
WPBeginner itself is the largest WordPress resource site on the internet. You will find the following resources on WPBeginner (all of them are completely free).
- WPBeginner Blog – This is where we publish our WordPress tutorials, how tos, and step by step guides.
- WPBeginner Videos – These step by step videos will help you learn WordPress FAST.
- WPBeginner on YouTube – Need more video instructions? Subscribe to our YouTube channel with more than 270,000 subscribers and 33 Million+ views.
- WPBeginner Dictionary – The best place for beginners to start and familiarize themselves with the WordPress lingo.
- WPBeginner Blueprint – Check out plugins, tools, and services we use on WPBeginner to help grow our business online.
- WPBeginner Deals – Exclusive discounts on WordPress products and services for WPBeginner users.
- WPBeginner Engage Group – Connect with our WordPress experts and other like-minded bloggers / website owners (over 85,000 members).
Here are few of our guides that you should bookmark right away. It will save you lots of time and money in the
Many of our users use Google search to find answers on WPBeginner. Simply type keywords for what you are looking for and add wpbeginner.com at the end.
Can’t find an answer? Send your question directly using our contact form, and we will try our best to answer.
Step 7. Taking it Further
So far we have shown you how to make a WordPress website, add a new theme, add new web pages, and install essential plugins.
Want to take it even further?
Using WordPress, you can create powerful niche websites capable of doing a lot more.
